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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Court Lets Officers Use Traffic Ticket As Pretext For Stop

From Wire Reports

On the lookout for narcotics violators, plainclothes vice officers stopped a truck for traffic offenses in a drug-infested neighborhood of Washington, spotted cocaine inside the vehicle and arrested the occupants.

Can prosecutors use the drug evidence in court - even though the officers had ulterior motives in making the traffic stop?

Yes, a unanimous Supreme Court ruled Monday.

What was important, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote, was that the officers had a valid reason - a traffic offense - to stop the vehicle. The fact that the traffic stop was a pretext to look for drugs didn’t strip the officers of their legal justification, he said.

But Natman Schaye, a Tucson, Ariz., lawyer who filed a brief for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, insisted that the decision “opens the door for police to do whatever they want.

“If you follow any motorist long enough, they’ll violate a traffic law,” he said.

Also Monday, the court ruled workers can be forced to waive their rights to sue their employer in exchange for a bonus to retire early. The 9-0 decision reverses the more liberal U.S. appeals court in California that said pension funds that are held in trust by the company cannot be used in effect to bribe workers to give up their legal rights.

The justices, disagreeing, said corporate directors are free to use some pension money for early retirees, as long as they do not jeopardize the pensions of future retirees.

Management experts said the ruling will allow companies to ease out workers with a minimum of pain.